As followers to this blog will know, I believe that regular single releases are one of the best ‘outreach’ opportunities you have to find a new audience and engage your existing fanbase. But are you making the most of your single releases?

I tend to find that single releases from DIY artists comprise just the one track, the single in question. We have to remember that in the streaming economy we get paid per stream so we need to think about maximising the revenue from each release.

I’d suggest at the very least including an instrumental version of the track as part of your ‘single’ . If half of the people streaming your new release listen to the instrumental as well, that’s the streaming revenue for this release up 50%! Including a remix, alternative mix or demo will also help.

When you’re mixing down your next single, always bounce an instrumental to include on there too.

We can utilise the same strategy for music videos as well. For each single, stagger the release of the following types of video: lyric video, full music video and karaoke instrumental video. Create a YouTube playlist for these versions and always share that playlist when plugging online.

In a week where YouTube has demonetised channels that don’t have thousands of hours of view time, you should be thinking of ways such as this to maximise your channel watch time.

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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